“Perez planned waal, but I was jus’ one jump ahead o’ him all the time, it seems,” Shorty went on. “He said he got in town the other mawnin’ from the pen, havin’ left thar at noon. I thought it strange he should come direct to us to git him a job when he could o’ gone to his old Mexican friends. He was still playin’ that poverty gag. I checked up on the pen, though, an’ found he had left thar twelve hours earlier than he said--so that he could o’ been here when the box was dug up. “Perez an’ Speers here dug up the box. I had suspected that Perez was in on it as soon as I heard the report, because the trail o’ the men had been obliterated by the draggin’ o’ the box, as we thought. An’ why? Because Perez knew his peg-leg marks would give him away. That’s why they came an’ went by wadin’ the creek. But it wasn’t a box they dragged after them. Perez simply scraped his shovel along as he made fer the creek, bein’ careful to follow the same path down as he had took comin’ up. “Perez got to our office early for two reasons. Fust, to impress on us that he wanted a job, that he was broke, an’ that he meant to go straight. Also, he wanted to be here when we opened so he could hear if Grandpa McMeel, who had stumbled onto things, reported to us. When Grandpa came in with his story, Perez moved to the winder, signalin’ Speers, who was waiting’. Speers came in an’ reported what he had seen, bein’ careful to give us bum descriptions. Ol’ eagle-eyed McMeel couldn’t describe the men it was so dark, but Speers could--an’ that’s why I suspected Speers. “When yuh found the wallet, boss. I was sure it had been planted to throw us off the track on a hopeless angle. I learned at the _Clarion_ office that Speers had been in, right after the case had become public, to give his story to the editor. He was alone in the office for a time. The old files are thar. I looked up the issue eight years back that carried the item that was in the wallet. Sure enough, that clippin’ had been clipped, an’ jus’ recent, because thar was new fingerprints on the dusty file. See? So I went out to the ranch whar yuh had got Perez his job an’ cross-examined him. He had the dough on him. He confessed everything, includin’ the fact that Speers had been in the rustlin’ game with him afore he went to the pen. Speers, however, didn’t know whar the swag was hid until Perez got back, told him, an’ together they arranged the job o’ recoverin’ their dough--easy enough ef ol’ Grandpa McMeel hadn’t butted in!” The faces of the county commissioners relaxed. “This,” said Commissioner Clark, “jus’ about clinches the election this spring, sheriff. Yuh done fine work. Yuh got our heartiest congratulations! The story o’ how yuh solved the most bafflin’ case in years in Monte Vista, will sure make good readin’. Folks all through the valley will lift their hats to yuh, sheriff--an’ vote us all back inter office, sure as shootin’!”